Wayra UK's PixelPin Secures Record-Breaking Investment

Wayra UK accelerated start-up PixelPin is the first business to ever secure the maximum level investment of £150,000 through Seedrs, an FSA-regulated crowd funding platform for start-ups.

In an interview following the announcement, Founder and CEO Brian Taylor told us, “this will allow us to fully commercialise PixelPin. We will also be able to enter full-scale trials and turn our trial partners into paying customers. Importantly, we will also be able to add to our team…we expect to make some hires later this year.”

On Wayra’s contribution he said, “Wayra has been key to helping us secure this funding. As well as providing a great platform to work from, they worked with us during the legal process of securing the investment to ensure it was agreed in line with our interests.”

PixelPin was founded by ISTAR expert Brian Taylor. His cross-platform cyber security software will “kill” the password as we know it. The software replaces traditional passwords with personal pictures, which the user ‘unlocks’ by tapping specific points on an image – these can be uploaded and changed at any time.

Brian’s inspiration came from a consultancy role he had at Thales, while doing some work with the Metropolitan Police. He saw how difficult the police officers found memorising their monthly changing, three-level, randomly created, fifteen character passwords. Inevitably, they wrote them down meaning that the passwords were redundant from the minute they were generated.

Wayra UK will recruit its second cohort of start-ups at wayraWeek 2013 later this month. For more information visit wayra.org/en or follow @WayraUK on twitter.